damned_institute | Day 31: Intercom, Evening

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Day 31: Intercom, Evening

The intercom's jingle came on with its usual overly-cheery quality, echoing through the halls and doctors' offices.

"I trust, as always, that you all enjoyed the last shift and that all the staff-patient interaction went smoothly. Of course, we're nearing the end of another day and so we must begin to bring things to a close. Nurses and orderlies, please escort all the patients to their respective rooms and make sure everyone gets their dinner--which is, by the way, chicken teriyaki and assorted tempura, along with rice and miso soup--before they retire for the night. A vegetarian substitute is of course available, and we have our usual assortment of drinks; we also have a special of hot green tea to go along with the meal.

"Thank you, everyone, for an exceedingly pleasant day, and our therapy sessions will continue tomorrow as scheduled. Enjoy your dinner, and I will be on again before bedtime to say goodnight."

The announcement ended.

[ As always, individual dinner threads go in response to this post, and it helps to put your character's room number in the subject line. Thanks! ]

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Beatrix couldn't help it anymore. She snorted a little, laughing. "I was referring to his bank account..."

She suddenly got very quiet and blinked slowly. "Now that is a mental image I didn't want," she said. "I think I need to wash my brain with acid..."

"Sure you were," Naomi snorted. "Oh come on, he's not that bad looking." If you were into that sort of look. There were probably dozens of teeny goths who'd think L was the gaunt, scrawny vampire of their dreams. Or whatever it was teenage goth girls were into. The whole scene had changed drastically since the 80s.

Besides, Naomi took the comment personally. As far as Arlene knew, she and Ryuga were regular partners. It just wasn't polite to express disgust at a female friend's lover.

"He's got... a certain appeal." Alright, maybe trying to convince Arlene L was attractive wasn't the way to go. "Besides, he's... talented."

"No, he's not that bad if you were into that sort of look," The Bride said, shaking her head a little. "But he's not my type. My baby's daddy aside, I grew up around muscular farm-hands, but whatever floats your boat."

Now Maki was making more sense with Ryuga's potential appeal. Computer geeks tended to have a lot of knowledge and, because they lack in a lot of areas, work to excel in the sensual side of things to make up for their appearance. But that left something amiss...

"Really now?" she inquired, eyebrow raised. Now it was getting interesting.

"Everybody has different taste." Though Naomi's was a bit more along the lines of Arlene's. She didn't exactly have a type, but she did tend to find herself attracted to pretty boys or more rugged, rocker types. Raye had certainly qualified as a pretty boy. He may not have been the smartest of men, or the most forward thinking, but he had been good looking. And not bad in bed, either.

"Didn't I just tell you that a lady doesn't kiss and tell? Besides, you already said 'ew'." She really, really didn't think she had the mental capacity to create a wild and passionate sex life on the spot. Not when the subject of said sex life was L.

Did L even have a sex life, she wondered. He didn't strike her at all as the sort to date - when would he be able to? If he had any sex life at all, it probably involved a computer screen and...

She wasn't going to think about that anymore.

"Fair enough," Beatrix replied. "Though I didn't say ew and you have no idea what my mental image atually had been." She grinned. "But that's just semantics anyways."

The Bride once again took her fighting stance and started a different form. "Hey Maki... Have you met Mason, by chance?"

After the words were out of her mouth, her brow furrowed. Now why did she just bring him up... with the prostitute? Because Maki is the closest thing you have to a friend that isn't another assassin or a seventeen year-old girl...

"Alright, fair enough. Let's just say... well, I already said he's very talented. But I mean very." There. That at least made her feel a bit better about the whole thing.

"Mason?" Naomi wracked her brain. "Uh...flirty guy with cigarettes? I think we talked a little on the notice board."

Maki's support of Ryuga's skills felt a little off to the Bride when the woman empahisized how talented he was, even after Beatrix had pretty much offered to drop the topic. It made her wonder since, by the accounts of the others on the board and her own newfound acceptance of things like magic and teleportation, those birds the night of the trip to Doyleton only attacked virgins. Ryuga had been attacked by one before she and Mion, whom the Bride knew was a virgin, had gotten there. By all counts, then, Ryuga should be a virgin. Of course, Maki could be meaning other things, but she was certainly implying there had been sex. Why would the woman lie to her about that?

It made her wonder, but she decided to let the subject drop and analyze her information later; she very well could have things from the night mixed up - it had been pretty stressful with the staff metamorphosing right before her.

"Mm," she replied, in agreement with Maki's identification. "That's him - British, endearing, cute." She glanced over. "So you haven't met him?"

"Not personally." Naomi shook her head. She wasn't concerned about Arlene's thought process on her comments, nor did she think much of it. She'd used the same words to describe Raye, back when they were first dating. It was just a generally accepted way to imply prowess and satisfaction without getting crude.

Not that Naomi minded getting crude, in the right circumstances.

She wondered why Arlene had brought up this Mason guy. "Or in person, rather," she modified. "We had a brief conversation on the board, but that's it. He came on a little strong for my tastes, so I pretty much dropped it." What had he called her? A 'delicate lotus blossom'?

"He's a lot different in person than on the board." Beatrix smiled a little. "He's really just a bumbling, charming kind of guy with bad luck. Quite a change from most of the riff-raff about."

She abruptly stopped her motions and sat upon her bed, chin in her hand. "He likes me. A lot."

"Oh." Naomi had experience with guys prone to 'bad luck'. They usually made it themselves. And were they... were they having girl talk? And she was probably supposed to be good at this sort of thing.

"Well, do you like him?"

The proespect of girl talk was just as foreign a concept to Beatrix as it was to her roommate. She averted her eyes from Maki.

"...Yeah... No... hell I don't know," she replied and sighed. "First of all this is not the place to even be thinking about such things. much less doing anything about them..."

"Wrong place... wrong time... you know that sort of thing." She kept her gae averted. "He's a good kisser though," she muttered and then sighed again. What the hell was she going to do about him?

"Well, it's human nature to form those kinds of bonds in situations like this," Naomi pointed out, logically. "Have you ever noticed how there's a baby boom immediately following any large disaster? Things like that bring it out in people. We want to have connections, we want to be together. And let's be realistic. We're not going anywhere anytime soon."

She couldn't dismiss the idea of having a fling here. Not for her, of course, that would be... she'd only just buried Raye, really. But she wouldn't fault other people for it.

"There's really no right place or time for it. But if you two like each other and you're compatible... might as well find something good in here, I guess."

"Yeah I know," Beatrix replied, scowling a little. "He asked me to come to his room earlier today. And I don't have any qualms about casual relationships - I've had my fair share of one-night-stands but still... things are..." What was the word she was looking for? "Complicated."

She'd mean that comment she made to HK when she first met him, joining in with SubZero with the teasing about how sometimes sex is even better with someone you didn't know. But... the actual consideration of it... hell, it'd been over five years since she'd wanted to have sex anyways...

"Thankfully, I already had plans tonight so I didn't have to come up with an excuse."

"You don't think he's looking for just a casual relationship?" Naomi pulled her legs up, her knees under her chin. But what else could anyone have here, if the whole idea of being from different worlds was true? Unless two people came from the same place, it couldn't work out.

"I'm fairly certain that's exactly what he's looking for," Beatrix replied, getting to her feet and walking back toward the dresser.

"And that's where the problem lies, especially since I'm not looking for anything beyond casual either." She opened the top drawer and, after setting the gore encrusted shard of glass she'd been using for a knife on top of the dresser, started refolding all the shirts inside it.

"Wait, if both of you aren't looking for anything more than casual, what's the problem?" Naomi didn't quite follow. If they both were looking for a fling, if she'd understood Arlene correctly, then she couldn't see where there'd be a problem.

Beatrix didn't answer right away as she continued to compulsively fold the shirts and return them neatly within the drawer and moving to the next one. It was a nervous habit she'd always had, thanks to her mother, anytime she was feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

"The problem is... the sex."

"What about the sex?" Naomi blinked. That was what a fling was, wasn't it? Casual sex?

"I... haven't for..." Beatrix sighed and shoved the dresser drawer closed. "Five... six years?"

"Oh." Naomi winced. Six years? God, she couldn't even imagine that. "Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. I... I'm sorry, I don't really have any experience with that."

"It's like riding a bike, you know - you never forget." Beatrix stared at the closed drawer a long moment.

"Okay, so I just lied to you. It hasn't been that long since I've had sex." Her body tensed up and her knuckles on the drawer turned white, she was holding it so tightly. She said something then, but it didn't carry to where Maki was sitting.

"You don't need to explain anything to me," Naomi said, holding up a hand. "It's okay. Maybe just...ease back into it? Go slowly?"

She still couldn't imagine going so long without. She got antsy if she went a week.

"I don't know if I can... It's not like I don't want to but, when I think about it... I..."

CRACK!

The Bride's grip on the wooden drawer was to tight as she thought about what they'd done to her in that El Paso hospital caused her to accidentally snap off the drawer's knob. She looked at it a moment before dropping it to the ground.

"Yeah. Like that." Her voice was suddenly devoid of emotion. "Sorry."

"Hey, hey." Okay, Naomi wasn't very good at offering comfort, but she wasn't an idiot. She could tell something was up here, and it wasn't good. "It's okay, just relax." She stood up and put a hand lightly on Arlene's shoulder. And these sorts of things were areas she had some experience in.

"Don't worry about it. It's just a drawer."

Beatrix winced a little at the contact. She'd felt the other woman's presence approach but hadn't been expecting to be touched. She stared at the drawer, one hand hanging limply down at her side.

"Yeah... just a drawer. An inanimate object simply laying there, subjected to whatever the people around it wanted to do, regardless of the consequences." Her eyes narrowed a little. "Yup, Just a drawer."

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